The Bounty Hunters from Arachnxx Three Read online

  CAPTAIN BARTHOLOMEW QUASAR

  and the

  BOUNTY HUNTERS

  from

  ARACHNXX THREE

  A Novella

  Milo James Fowler

  www.milojamesfowler.com

  For Sara

  Two are better than one

  Episode 1: Flight of the Magnitude

  Jaw muscle twitching at untimed intervals, Captain Bartholomew Quasar gripped the armrests of his deluxe-model captain's chair and narrowed his heroic gaze. The main viewscreen on the bridge of the Effervescent Magnitude radiated with white-hot streaks blurring in elongated trajectories as his star cruiser plunged into the depths of space at something near the speed of light.

  Quasar could feel the tension in the air. It was palpable and tasted like sweat—mostly his own. The members of his bridge crew remained silent, standing at their stations and staring at the viewscreen. Many forgot to blink as their insides trembled, recoiling with a nameless fear.

  They had never moved so fast in their lives.

  How long could the ship maintain this incredible velocity without compromising hull integrity? Already, the Magnitude was creaking and groaning in protest, and the helmsman—a very hairy, four-armed Carpethrian who resembled something between a sloth and an overweight orangutan—had begun to grumble that the recently installed cold fusion reactor should have been thoroughly tested before this full-speed leap into the uncharted black.

  But there had been no other choice. Their options at the time were either flight (and survival) or fight (and undoubtedly be destroyed). Vicious Arachnoid bounty hunters were hot on their tail, and Arachnoids tended to be a very hungry lot, often foregoing payment for their illicit services in favor of a fresh kill.

  The Magnitude's first officer, Commander Selene Wan, wasn't keen on the idea of allowing a Carpethrian to man the helm of their freshly minted star cruiser. But no one else on board knew how to navigate at near-lightspeed, and it took all four of the alien's hands to do the job—something two humans would have had to coordinate in tandem. And that could have gotten awkward.

  "Steady as she goes." Quasar smoothed down his close-cropped blond hair and cringed as the ship released a moan that didn't sound good at all—something akin to a whale giving birth. "How are we doing, Hank?"

  Hank was the Carpethrian's name—or something close to it. The ship's translation software was the best that United World Space Command had to offer, but it hadn't experienced enough alien tongues firsthand to be without error. Its syntax and semantics were still limited by the sum total of Earth's human languages, and the Carpethrian tongue seemed to be made up entirely of Neanderthal-like monosyllables and deep-throated noises most humans would deem impolite, if not impossible to emulate.

  "Haven't run into anything yet," grunted the helmsman, furry hands flying across the controls.

  "Status report?" Quasar half-turned to regard his first officer with a confidently raised eyebrow.

  Commander Wan, a tall, slim Eurasian with impeccable posture, kept her attention riveted on her console. "Proximity scanners are offline." She swayed on her feet with the rocking movements of the ship, her raven-black hair brushing across her shoulders like a silken curtain. "Artificial gravity is holding. Life support remains functional." A sudden frown creased her usually furrow-free forehead. "But the reactor, sir… We may have a serious problem."

  "Elaborate."

  "It's overheating, Captain. If we don't decelerate, it may—" She swallowed. "Explode."

  That wouldn't be good at all. The folks back home were depending on Captain Quasar and company to bring back loads of quartz dust, necessary for virtually every form of technology and transportation on Earth—not to mention haute vintage time pieces. The Magnitude could not possibly be allowed to blow up.

  "Hank?" Quasar faced the shaggy helmsman. "Could we slow down just a tad?"

  The Carpethrian grunted something unintelligible, followed by, "Commencing deceleration sequence."

  "Very good." The captain nodded, glancing over his shoulder at his first officer. Everything was under control. Of course it was. He never had any doubt about it. "Status?"

  She shook her head without a word. Quasar checked the console on his armrest. The Arachnoid ship was nowhere in sight, and the Magnitude had begun to slow down, but by only an infinitesimal fraction of its near-lightspeed velocity.

  "Uh-Hank? About that deceleration sequence…" Quasar cleared his throat.

  "It will take thirty minutes, Captain. Any sudden downshift in speed would tear the ship apart."

  Quasar maintained a brave façade for the sake of his crew. Such was expected from starship captains, after all. Clenching his jaw, he leaned toward Wan and whispered, "Do we have thirty minutes?"

  She met his gaze, and he didn't like what he saw in her eyes—something she hadn't shown before, not when they'd dealt with the horrible Goobalobs or the savage Arachnoids:

  Terror.

  Episode 2: Dead Stop

  Captain Quasar pounded his armrest with a clenched fist and leapt from his chair, leaving it to swivel jerkily behind him as he groped his way across the heaving deck. Reaching the very hairy helmsman, he gripped the back of Hank's seat and leaned into the Magnitude's sporadic lurches like a flare-surfer on Paradiso 7.

  "You can't be serious." He kept his voice low, aiming it toward what he assumed was the Carpethrian's left ear—but he couldn't be sure with all that fur covering the orifice. "There's got to be another way to slow us down." He gnawed on his knuckles for a moment. "Can we take the reactor offline?"

  Hank lifted one of the shoulders in his superior pair. "We need the power to activate reverse thrusters."

  "There won't be any reverse thrusters if we can't get it to cool down!" Quasar cursed, running a hand over his clean-shaven jaw.

  When he was offered this assignment, he couldn't help but imagine the glory it would entail: captaining the first star cruiser to venture out of the Sol system and make first contact with Carpethria. For decades, Earth had been in long-wave communication with her only alien ally, yet there had never been a meeting between them in the flesh. But after the Goobalob incident, and with the Arachnoids in hot pursuit, and now this cold fusion near-lightspeed reactor threatening to destroy the Effervescent Magnitude less than a month after leaving space dock, Quasar was beginning to have his doubts.

  Instead of a full-screen article in the Universal Encyclopedia of Human Knowledge, his exploits would be relegated to a brief blurb on how the initial cooperative efforts between Earth and Carpethria resulted in ultimate disaster!

  Captain Bartholomew Quasar couldn't allow that to happen. Such was not his destiny. He would have at least one full-screen article—perhaps even three or four—devoted to his heroic exploits. This he believed with all his heart.

  "There's got to be another way. What sort of magic spins up a reactor in a matter of seconds but requires a full half hour to stop it?"

  "Magic?" What sounded like a derisive chuckle erupted from deep in one of Hank's throats.

  "That's what I said." Quasar glanced at the Carpethrian. "Let me guess. You don't believe in it."

  He didn't fully understand how the reactor worked, only that for centuries all the eggheads back on Earth had said cold fusion was science fiction (and very poor sci-fi at that). He was just glad to prove them wrong. It worked, obviously! But the concept of near-lightspeed had always struck him as being more supernatural than scientific.

  Hank attempted to clear his twin throats, resulting in a slightly harmonic gargle. "On Carpethria, we believe in the predictable wonders of science. But I see how this sort of technology would seem magical to
a less evolved species."

  The captain bristled. "If you weren't the only humanoid on board able to navigate at near-lightspeed—"

  "Wasn't like I had much say in the matter."

  He was right about that. When the Arachnoids attacked without warning, the Magnitude had just been outfitted with the new reactor, and the Carpethrian work crews had disembarked only minutes earlier. The last engineer on board, Hank had been finishing up some final calibrations on the navigation software in the helm console. He'd activated the control panel, checked its functionality for any bugs, and turned to leave without so much as a farewell.

  The first Arachnoid incinerator blast had struck the bridge, killing two of Quasar's crew in an instant.

  There was only one thing to do at the time: make the jump to near-lightspeed and leave the bounty hunters far behind. But in so doing, Hank had been shanghaied, to use a quaint term of yore. And until the Effervescent Magnitude was able to lose the Arachnoids on her tail, Hank wouldn't be returning to his home planet. Quasar couldn't risk making a trip back to Carpethria anytime soon, not with the Goobalob bounty on his head.

  "What did you do, exactly?" Hank glanced up at the captain. "The Goobalobs are known for hiring bounty hunters to do their dirty work, but two Arachnoid vessels? Seems like overkill."

  Quasar clenched his jaw, and the muscle twitched on cue. "They have their reasons." He wasn't prepared to go into those reasons yet. Not that he wanted to build the suspense or anything; he just had much more pressing matters on his mind at the moment—like surviving the next thirty minutes.

  "Captain," Commander Wan said, as if to warn him of impending doom. She had that tone.

  He turned toward her as a tremendous shudder coursed through the ship. The plasteel hull plates grated against each other and shrieked with incredible friction. It sounded like the ship was starting to come apart at the seams while putting up a good fight to remain intact, but this was inevitably one battle that would beat her.

  Wan's intense gaze hadn't left him. Selene Wan was one of those overachievers who'd moved quickly up the ranks with a stellar reputation that preceded her—much like Quasar himself, he had to admit. The difference was that he'd reached his ultimate career goal: commanding a star cruiser. Now his aim in life was simply the search for adventure and glory. And, yes, fame. But for Commander Wan, there was a different objective in sight: ambassadorship by age forty. With a decade yet to go, she was on track to accomplishing this and much more if all went according to plan.

  Exploding due to an experimental cold fusion reactor's inability to slow itself down in less than thirty minutes, however, was not on her to-do list.

  Quasar saw fear again flash in her eyes, and if he'd been honest with himself, his own life would have been doing some flashing as well. But he had more important things to do than be honest with himself. He had to save his ship—and as every captain worth his retirement plan knows full well, his ship is his crew.

  Staggering awkwardly back to his captain's chair amidst the rolling motion of the deck, he clung to the armrest and activated the comm panel.

  "Crew of the Effervescent Magnitude, this is your captain speaking. As you may have noticed, we've encountered a bit of turbulence during our near-lightspeed flight. Rest assured, we are currently in the process of returning to a more conventional velocity. But in the meantime, report to your nearest evacuation tube in an orderly fashion. Life pods are standing by. No need to be alarmed. This is just a prudent precaution. Thank you."

  He switched off the comm and raised a confident eyebrow at his first officer. "That includes you, Wan. I'll handle things from here." He expected her to argue that just because he was the captain, that didn't mean he had to go down with his vessel. It was an antiquated notion, he supposed, but then again, he'd always considered himself a Golden Age sort of hero.

  She blinked at him. "Sir, a life pod ejected at this velocity would disintegrate as soon as it left the ship."

  He blinked right back at her. "Ah. Yes."

  He scrambled to reactivate the comm with an updated message for the crew.

  Only he didn't get the chance. For at that moment, the Effervescent Magnitude came to a dead stop.

  Episode 3: Two Against One

  There was no explosion, no lurch of residual forward momentum, no need to grab onto consoles or armrests to keep from flying headfirst into the viewscreen. It was as if a mighty storm at sea had suddenly stilled without reason.

  Miraculously, the Effervescent Magnitude remained intact and none the worse for wear.

  "Report." Quasar half-turned to regard his first officer with a cautious eye while managing to exude the expected amount of confidence.

  "I don't understand it, sir..." Her eyes darted side to side, taking in the readings on her console. "All systems read normal, but the reactor—"

  "Yes?"

  She met his gaze. "It...just stopped."

  "That can't be." Hank rose from his seat. "If it had, we wouldn't be here right now talking about it."

  Wan ignored the Carpethrian. As a noncommissioned member of the bridge crew, anything he had to say wasn't worthy of her time.

  "The reactor's offline?" Quasar frowned quizzically at his first officer.

  "No, sir. Somehow, the near-lightspeed propulsion system simply ceased operating. Life support, weapons systems, proximity scanners—everything else remains online."

  "So we have power, but we're dead in the water."

  She nodded. "So to speak."

  Quasar faced the Carpethrian. "Any light you could shed on our present situation, Hank?"

  Both sets of furry shoulders shrugged. "We didn't have a chance to put your ship through the proper battery of tests. There could be any number of unforeseeable quirks with that reactor. It was too soon to spin it up to full speed. Now we're nowhere near my planet and our technicians who would know how to make the necessary adjustments."

  "So...there's nothing you can do?"

  Hank tapped his console, bringing up a schematic of the propulsion system. "Looks like it burned out a couple of reactor coils. If we can get our hands on those components, I'll try to get us flying again." Another shrug. "But where are we?"

  The Carpethrian brought up a good point.

  Quasar cleared his throat. "How far have we—?"

  "Captain," Commander Wan interrupted, "two vessels are on an intercept course."

  "The Arachnoids," Quasar muttered with a sinking feeling in his gut. That unreliable cold fusion reactor had left the Magnitude stranded, sitting there like a lame duck waiting for a hunter's bullet.

  "Entering visual range." Wan brought up her console's display on the bridge viewscreen.

  "Load plasma torpedoes." Quasar clenched his fists at his sides. When they'd first encountered the Arachnoids, the hideous spider-creatures had opened fire with their incinerator rays and hailed the Magnitude only after they'd punctured her hull. "This time, we'll be the ones to shoot first and ask questions later."

  "Those aren't Arachnoid vessels." Hank narrowed his deep-set eyes at the viewscreen as two small ships darted into view. "Short-range fighters, by the looks of them."

  "Of course." Quasar relaxed at the sight. He felt like a fool—though he never would have admitted such a thing in front of his crew or Hank. The Arachnoids could not have possibly caught up with the Magnitude yet. Their vessels did not possess the capacity for anything close to near-lightspeed travel. "Do you recognize them, Hank?"

  The shaggy helmsman shook his head, folding both pairs of arms over his rotund abdomen. "We're millions of kilometers away from my solar system."

  Quasar took that as a no. "Have they hailed us yet?"

  "They're charging weapons," Wan reported. "Laser cannons—nothing our hull plating can't withstand."

  "Spunky." The captain allowed half a grin. "Hail them."

  Before Commander Wan could initiate first contact, however, the small fighter vessels broke into a high-speed attack pattern, sweeping strai
ght toward the Effervescent Magnitude and breaking ranks to flank the ship, firing repeatedly across its port and starboard sides.

  Quasar cringed. Hadn't the Magnitude suffered enough abuse during its extended flight at near-lightspeed? The last thing she needed was to be blasted by this cannonade.

  But with each hit, only dull thuds resounded through the hull, and there was no damage for Commander Wan to report.

  Hank scoffed into his fur. "Your ship could take them both out with a single torpedo—if you got them to line up just right."

  "We don't need to destroy any more alien ships on this mission," Quasar muttered under his breath.

  "Is that what happened with the Goobalobs?" For having both ears covered with such thick fur, the Carpethrian could hear surprisingly well. "Did you take down one of their toll-collecting vessels?"

  Quasar found himself bristling again at the helmsman's words. "It was an honest mistake—just a big misunderstanding, if you must know."

  Hank nodded, half-turning to face the captain. "I'm listening."

  "How's that?"

  The Carpethrian shrugged again—just his superior set of shoulders this time. "No telling how long I'll be along for the ride, Captain. Might be nice to know how you got yourselves into this mess."

  Another barrage of fire passed across both sides of the Magnitude. Quasar glanced back at Wan.

  "No damage, sir."

  He nodded. "We'll get you caught up to speed at some point, Hank. But for now, we obviously have bigger concerns." He signaled his first officer with a complicated hand gesture.

  "Captain?"

  He repeated the gesture, pointing at the viewscreen as the two alien fighters swept into view.

  "But sir—" She lowered her voice, glancing at Hank. "That's what we tried with the Goobalob vessel."

  "So let's get it right this time," he said without moving his lips—a skill he'd perfected after long hours standing in front of his bathroom mirror.